There is "utter confusion" among farmers over new bovine TB actions, according to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA).

Deputy president of the ICMSA, Eamon Carroll said clarity is needed at farm level on the status of the new changes on TB and their schedule of introduction.

“Farmers were told in early 2025 that changes were coming in relation to bTB - a year later and farmers do not know where they stand on such a serious matter," Carroll said.

The ICMSA has urged the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to "immediately clear this state of utter confusion".

This should be done by "communicating directly with farmers setting out the changes that are to be introduced, [and] when those changes are being introduced".

The association has also called for clarity on what changes the "other actors in the cattle supply chain are going to see and how those changes will be measured".

'Alarm bells'

Eamon Carroll said that "despite the alarm bells ringing loudly" throughout 2025 on the surge in bTB, it was not until September 2025 that a "response plan" launched.

He said farmers now are "no wiser about what exactly is going to happen and when those changes will take place".

“The only thing that we know for certain at this stage is that the department is intent on imposing very specific rules on farmers and very little on themselves or other actors in the cattle supply chain," according to Carroll.

"If we are to have clear targets on farmers, then we also need to have similarly clear verifiable targets and metrics on the department themselves, on marts, on dealers and on feedlots."

TB is a "massive issue" at farm level with "many families suffering from a farm management, financial and personal perspective", Carroll said.

Farmer buy-in

The TB Action Plan must have "farmer buy-in if it is to succeed in slowing and then reversing the TB incidence", the ICMSA deputy president said.

He said the association is getting "reports from across the country that new rules are being implemented in some places and not in others, along with different interpretations of the same rule depending on location".

"Nobody has been told definitively what these rules are or are going to be implemented," Carroll said. 

"If the department is serious in relation to bringing farmers with them on TB, then it should immediately communicate with all farmers setting out in detail the new rules."